In the new system reports will be drawn up for each institute, and in future universities and the reseach organisations themselves decide what this will include. The visitations therefore are no longer limited to programme research within the universities. NWO- and KNAW-institutes will also be part of the new system.
The new protocol should make an end to the extra burden for researchers caused by the assessments. Besides the present five-year cycle of visitations of universities many scientific programmes also have to be examined by the KNAW, which judges the plans of the research schools, and by research financier NOW.
Scientists often complain that they lose so much time writing reports and collecting data for the assessment committees that they can hardly get any of their real work done.
In future researchers have to draw up a self-evaluation report that assesses the work of the past period and looks to the future.
In addition, every six years an external assessment takes place, the results of which will be made public.
Eventually this should result in a national database with research information, available for everyone through the internet. Quality of management is also judged in the reports, which should make a separate committee unnecessary.
It will be decided by the institutes themselves who will conduct the visitation every six years. At this moment the composition of a national visitation-committee is decided after months of consultation rounds by the VSNU. And still this often leads to disagreements: because of the recent chemistry visitation report the universities of Utrecht and Groningen in particular felt slighted, as the members of the committee were thought to have insufficient knowledge of their specialisms.
How the new system can guarantee the independence of the visitation committees is as yet unclear. That will probably be investigated by a supervisory committee from the science academy KNAW.
